The velveteen rabbit.
A boy had a toy. It was a velveteen rabbit. Boy loved so much. And they never parted with him. But sometimes he was put with the other toys in the nursery and could listen to their stories about Real Things. «What is Real?» he asked the Wooden Horse who had lived a very long life.
«Real isn’t how you are made. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child really loves you for a long time, then you become Real. It doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a long time. But once you are real, you’ll never become unreal again», explained the Wooden Horse.
And once when the Boy was called away to go out to some tea, the Rabbit was left alone on the law. Boy couldn't find him and was crying all night.
«Fancy all this fuss for a toy!» said his mother. «He isn’t a toy! He’s real!»
The little Rabbit heard him say that magic word and he knew that what the Wooden Horse had said to him had become true at last.
But once boy become ill with a Scarlett fever. Time passed and the Boy got better and was allowed to get up. It only remained to carry out the doctor’s orders.
All the books and toys that the Boy had played with had to be burnt. So, the little Rabbit was put into a sack with old books and a lot of rubbish. He felt so lonely and so miserable that a tear, a real tear fell to the ground.
